With the spotlight on the Bay Area and the NBA Finals, the time couldn’t have been better for an all-star cast of sports professionals to speak to California High School students.

The 400 students, however, didn’t recognize any of them from any field or court, from a television commercial or roster, but that was intentional. Being a part of the sports industry is more than suiting up in a team uniform and playing the game. There are hundreds of professionals behind the scenes doing just that by scoring “points” and running successful plays supporting those athletes.

Stephen Eriksen, a resident of San Ramon and founder of Bay Area Sports Management, was instrumental in bringing the Sports Marketing Summit back to Cal High for a second year. His objective is simply to expose students to the many careers available to them in the sports and entertainment industries.

Learning about these professions says Eriksen, will hopefully help students “gravitate toward something that is real.” Eriksen says he always loved sports growing up in Vallejo, but despite being cut from his high school teams, he found a way to build a career that keeps him involved in sports and all the action. The son of schoolteachers, and now father of two school-aged children, Eriksen said he was studying political science in college with the intent to be a sports agent/lawyer when he realized his only A was in speech communications. He changed course and landed a job with the Golden State Warriors when he graduated in 1997 and helped create the “Thunder” mascot that would last for the next seven or so years and worked a variety of jobs in the front office before leaving for a private firm.

Cole Evans, 16, will be a senior at Cal High in the fall and has worked as the varsity baseball team manager for three years. He said he plans to work in sports marketing or as a sports agent and found it inspiring to hear the panel.

The summit was beneficial to the high school student, he says because “each of the them had outlined what they did and how they contributed to their teams and players.” Graham Betchart was particularly interesting and gave the best speech about mental preparation, says Evans.

“When you think of training, you think of the physical part first, but you have to know how to achieve with your mind, too.” The mental preparation for an athlete is just as important. As a believer in “mind over matter,” Evans said this was interesting to hear.

The summit was all about showcasing the industries that work with sports: financial planners, advertisers, publicists, performance coaches, foundations and presenting the inspiring speakers up against a big screen flashing commercials, logos and fist-pounding music.

This year’s event, held for 90 minutes during school hours at no charge to the district, attracted more than 400 students. Eriksen wants to do it again with several ideas to expand the program including holding it on a Saturday so it doesn’t conflict with school sports’ teams practices.